Red squirrel conservation project scoops £1m funding injection to save iconic Scottish species from extinction

Efforts to save one of Scotland’s most iconic – and most threatened – native animals are set to be stepped up, thanks to more than £1 million of new funding from the Scottish Government.

Red squirrels, with their cheeky faces, bushy tails and tufted ears, are one of the nation’s best-loved wildlife species.

Once widespread in woodlands across the UK, they have been disappearing at a worrying rate over the past century. Several factors are blamed for their dramatic decline, including persecution, loss of habitat, disease and being ousted by their grey squirrel cousins from America.

Today Scotland hosts around three quarters of the total remaining population of red squirrels – estimated at around 160,000, compared to more than three million greys. Greys outcompete their smaller British relatives for food and also carry the squirrelpox virus, which can prove deadly to reds.

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A multi-partner project, Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS), has been working since 2009 to reverse declines and safeguard the future of the species. Conservation measures include catching and culling grey squirrels.

Now the project, led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, has been awarded a two-year grant totalling £1,052,796 from the Nature Restoration Fund, managed by NatureScot.

The injection of funding will result in innovative new tactics being deployed to help boost numbers, including ramping up work to eradicate the last remaining grey squirrels from north-east Scotland, which are separated geographically from the rest of Scotland’s grey population.

Conservation project Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels has been awarded more than £1m from the Scottish Government's Nature Restoration Fund, to help safeguard the survival of the country's only native squirrel species. Picture: Raymond Leinster

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To do this, teams of conservation detection dogs will be used to sniff out grey squirrels and genetic sampling will be carried out to identify individuals, which will improve trapping efficacy and provide better estimates of how many of the invasive aliens remain around Aberdeen.

If successful, the Aberdeen project could result in the first mainland urban eradication of an invasive mammal worldwide.

Community-focused rapid response monitoring and control networks will also be set up across the northern central lowlands to help pave the way for a long-term southward shift of the Highland Line Control Zone. This zone is a 10km strip stretching from Balloch to Montrose and buffering the diagonal Highland Boundary Fault Line, where Scotland’s Highland red-only squirrel population intersects with the most northerly reaches of grey squirrels moving up from the lowlands.

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These networks will help facilitate the project’s aim to wipe out greys on the islands of Loch Lomond.

Dr Katherine Leys, NatureScot’s head of biodiversity and geodiversity, said: “Scotland’s red squirrels are one of our well-loved symbols of nature, but they are threatened by non-native grey squirrels.

“This funding from the Nature Restoration Fund will help to protect the Highland population above the boundary fault. Through the fund, we support vital work to restore Scotland’s species and habitats.

“Now more than ever, we need nature-based solutions to the climate-nature crises.

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“It’s projects like this that can really help to stop biodiversity loss and enable us to move towards a nature-rich, net-zero future for everyone in Scotland.”

SSRS programme manager Nicole Still said: “We are delighted to receive this new funding, which represents the next step in the journey towards integrating sustainable long-term red squirrel recovery in Scotland.

“Our hopes and aims for the next phase are ambitious, but ones that we absolutely can realise with increased landscape-scale investment from partners, stakeholders, landowners and local community involvement.”